Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana 1993, št. 28 143 BERNARD POCHE THE CREATION OF A "NEW STATE" IN SLOVENJA. ELABORATION OF THE COMPETENCES OF PUBLIC AUTHORITIES AND MOBILIZATION OF SOCIAL PROCESSES OF IDENTIFICATION AND MEMBERSHIP - A RESEARCH PROGRAM General presentation of the guestion The research concerning Slovenia which is planned to be untertaken from 1994 on and whose general guidelines are given in the following article, has been initially the development of theoretical research in the field of sociology of territory. So it fits into a work program spread over several years, centered upon different areas of study in Europe, and concerns the problem of re- defining the relationship between social groups, territories, and social represen- tation at its highest level of generality (including therefore culture and lan- guage, but also representations of economic and political institutions in a soci- ety). It is thus the sociological eguivalent of the geo-political problematics of the redefinition of state boundaries. The analysis of this re-definition of the relationships between the three above mentioned elements has up to now operated through two different cases: Belgium, with the problem of change to federalism; the claim for autonomy and the calling into guestion of unitary Italian State, first in Lombardy, then in all of Northern Italy. The idea of continuing this work with the particular case of creation of the Republic of Slovenia has been first the conseguence of some opportunities (professional relationships with Slovene sociologists, joint work with Italian and italianist colleagues in Trieste). It guickly appeared that the Slovene situation, before and after the collapse of the Yugoslav Federation, was very interesting for two aspects at least: the Sloven position of an intermediary between Central Europe and the Balkanic world, and the relative clearness of the parameters involved (population, language, history, and so on). Fortunately the idea received some interest among Slovene University departments and research centers, and especially from the Institute for Ethnic Studies, so joint research is now possible to plan. Editor's note: Meanwhile, the joint Franco-Slovene rescarch project under the above title has bcen approved for finacing by the Slovene Ministry of Science and Technology and will be on the Slovene side carried out by the Institute of Ethnic Studics (project coordina- tor Irena Šumi), headed by principal rescarcher Frane Adam (research Institute of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana). 144 Bernard Poche: The creation Moreover, this work indirectly uses as its basis various previous important research concerning: 1) regional movements, especially in France; and 2) the theory of local representation featuring two main paradigms, the self-represen- tation of a local community, including its territory and its manners and prac- tices, and the social definition of local language. Both research topics have been the subject of numerous papers and articles. The goal of this piece of research is to force us to ask ourselves guestions about the sociological basis of the space organization through specific "situations of crisis"; that is to say, about the relationships between two ele- ments: 1) the part of spatial representations in the construction of coherence of a social group, and in the elaboration of its expressive forms; 2) the setting up ofa "social form" (in Georg Simmel's sense) that can possibly be used as an institutional framework. As a matter of fact, the status of the Nation-State, and the persuasive strength of the argumentation used about it (with the support of historical, legal and political viewpoints and those of corresponding social sciences) have fre- guently prevented sociological (and even ethno-anthropological) analysis of reaching the basis, and running, of corresponding processes; this conseguence has been re-inforced by the very important affective aspects connected to the notions of peoplehood, nation and/or national awareness, self-determination, and so on. The present evolution of the upheavals that can be observed in Europe calls into guestion both the impression of stability prevailing until 1980-85, and the nature of the supposed contemporary prevalent general trends. These trends were more or less ascribed to a double process of rationalization and globaliza- tion in economic and socio-political spheres. The main feature was supposed to be, in the Westem world, the unification of markets and the construction of the European Community and, in the Eastern part, the attempt to reduce social and cultural heterogeneity within the framework of marxist rationalization. In fact, actual processes seem to be more complex. Not only have both lib- eral and social-democratic Nation-States and socialist aggregates been carried along by the unifying mechanisms founded on the logical nature of worldwide exchange, the economies of scale, technological changes and sophisticated communication systems; furthermore, this alleged transformation of societies as a whole into a kind of worldwide '"macro-society" is to be called into guestion given the appearance of forgotten or unexpected "group awarenesses". The latter use numerous and various criteria in order to claim parts of ex ofjicio partners, that is to say, a plain intermediary status between individuals and those functional processes that put aside - so people seemed to believe - the idea of such intermediary levels. In future, such levels were supposed to simply become folkloristic. This obviously was the borderless Europe (or world) theme. However, it is clear that these new (even embryonic) organizations cannot use the forms of classical political structures (state independence and sover- Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana 1993, št. 28 145 eignty, eventually of the federative sort) as was the case in the second part of the nineteenth century. At that time, "modern" States were being built in Europe, more or less according to the theory of nationalities, sometimes using the federalist system when important internal multiculturalism was an issue. The assumption can also be made that these changes (or change claims) are not of the regionalist movement kind - obviously it will be necessary to confirm this through research. The regionalist movements generaly had their origin in historical, and long-time-integrated into centralized States, regions; their com- parative situations seemed to deteriorate due to their underdeveloped position. The use of cultural argumentation mixed with poor economic situation often led to labelling as archaic the corresponding movements and/or areas. The situations here under study are very different. Most of the concerned regions, especially F landers," Lombardy and Slovenia, are particularly dynamic and prosperous areas of their corresponding (former, in case of Slovenia) States. However, the conclusion must not be that economic factors are the main ones with respect to this problem: many other elements are involved. In a more general way, it seems relevant not to let the problematics of the subject be absorbed into a mix of long-term historical evidence and highly opportunistic short-term manouvering. This type of thought process makes all the peculiarities, local forms and specific circumstances, just a part of a general "destiny". It generally prevents all kind of analysis aiming at social elaboration, the strategies, and the permanent use of symbolic representation and knowl- edge. It underrates the character of production of a new "definition of the situa- tion"; according to William Thomas, every significant change in the relation- ship between a human group and its space possesses such definition. Each change of this type is in fact a new intelligibility of the social world, a new way of culturally and institutionally defining a group/territory complex, rather than a claim or a conflict in legal and/or political field. The study of all the procedures whose aim is in obtaining legitimation, jus- tification, rational creating of methods, first sheds light on social processes actually at work, and secondly, gives the sociologist a possibility to investigate phenomena such as the actual group cultures' operation, the social role of "national awareness", and defines the relation between the whole and its (constitutive) parts. All these problems are rarely considered from a scientific viewpoint (partly because of their sensitive echoes); conseguently, they are often treated by using non-scienfitic terminology, that is to say, using in an immoderate way a pseudo-historical logics and/or affective evidences. '. Flanders are the ori gin and the very cause of federally-oriented social and political change in Belgium. 146 Bernard Poche: Thc creation Theoretical and methodological framework Though it has been guite unintentional, the project is in fact rather closely connected with the main guidelines of the ethnomethodological approach. The creation of a new State (or a territory with a high level of autonomy) can be considered as emphoying two distinct but convergent aspects. The first deals with the creation of such structures, in such a way as they would be objectively recognizable, rational-looking, that constitute the framework of the individuals" proceedings. Second, it allows for the establishment of a comprehensive intel- ligibility of the social world, composed of several parts: material space, the actual practices within this space (biographic, economic, leisure, and so on); cultural and symbolic corresponding resources, all of those thus considered a frame of reference. In all that follows we are mainly concerned with Slovenia. Of course the first item (building up an objective whole of competences) is necessarily uni- tary - since it no longer concerns a federal State. By contrast, the second item can be composed of distinct sub-systems. The representation of the Slovene space can be (and nearly necessarily is) both unitary as a whole, and varying in terms of secondary social idiosyncrasies. However, the starting point (as a postulate) is that no contradictions result from this fact. The problem then is in elaborating two associated systems of representation, one concerning the organizational structure of the State, the other concerning the Slovene territory. That is to say, the objective of the study is in discovering how the concerned social action builds up an objectivity to be used as a start- ing point to permanently elaborate the sense and the legitimity of their actions. It is therefore possible to directly connect this work with Harold Garfinkels analysis concerning "accountability" of the "real world", its building up as the whole of the "organized activities of everyday life", as this author states in the introduction of Studies in Ethnomethodology:? "Ethnomethodological studies analyse everyday activities as members" methods for making those activities visibly-rational-and-reportable-for-all-practical-purposes, i.e. "accountable", as organizations of commonplace everyday activities" (op. cit., p. vii.). So it is possible to plan two rather different sorts of studies concerning two distinct ways of "building of the accountability of practices" that both, how- ever, aim at the same end as far as our research theme is concerned: 1) How people which elaborate constitutional documents define State at- tributes and public authorities organization in the different fields concerned and establish them as rational, and how those who use these dispositions, or are concerned with them, set them up as a without-any-problem referential social framework in order to situate their practices. This kind of inguiry can be called the "sociology of competences", that is to say, the interpretation of competences assigned to a public authority as an easy and guick process, on the part of the concerned individuals, in order to be used 8 Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1967. Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana 1993, št. 28 147 as a framework for their everyday activities, their "practical accomplishments". This guestion could seem naive or prohibitive (which obviously it is not) with respect to a long-established State, but it is much easier to pose in a case of a new State created, and furthermore, in such a difficult context (radical change of the inspiring ideology, necessity to insert the process into an evolutive but rather restricting European context). Therefore, by selecting a limited number of field locations, the topic of the creation of a new State can be a particularly interesting "laboratory" for the study of the process of premanent construction of social nationality which is the precondition of running any State. 2) The second guestion no longer concerns the building of institutional frameworks, but the construction of permanent logic for their use by the citi- zens as a "social form", as a discourse about identification. This presupposes that there is a way for them to recognize themselves as Slovenes, to make themselves exist as "members" of what is referred to as a properly Slovene- defined group. Conseguently, this also presupposes the building of a discourse intended to make visible what is normally implicit, to establish as factual crite- ria what normally results from everyday activity. This operation is less founded in a "crisis" hypothesis than was the case with the first operation, since this symbolic representation does not have to be in- vented from start to finish; it just needs to be finalized, in order to transform and make explicit what is already the sensitiveness of every individual (to an infinite number of material facts, historical tales, myths, landscapes, and all his everyday life frameworks), into a general symbolic discourse, consciously directed towards the self-assertion of being Slovene. This assertion reguires a triple operation of "construction of an accountability"; it is necessary to simul- taneously establish: - the group itself as a social unit; - the characteristics aseribed to this group (by defining common practices and speech as "natural" characteristics); - the boundaries as they are set in order to establish a revealing difference between "we" and "they" ("us" - "them"). ; These three items together must be made "reportable-rational" in order to form the "normative framework" which will reinterprete into "group aware- ness" data what is normally just routine everyday activity. To detect this passage which constructs our "ethno-method", we will have to detail the practical material that is involved and to analyse the way it is em- ployed; that is to say, an analysis of everyday activities would have to be made (this may wrongly seem, as we said before, an infinite and unproblematicised What is referred to here are not formal EC regulations, although obviously Slovenia is a "candidate to candidature", but tacit rules founding the association agreement between the previous "European space" (Europcan Community plus Europcan Frec Trade Associa- tion) and the "new Eastern democracies". 148 Bernard Poche: The creation task) according to their actual use as a passage towards symbolic discourse, or as bearing a previously incorporated symbolic content. As mentioned above, this latter analysis is by no means a unitary one. It must necessarily integrate various sub-systems of sensibilities that possibly may distinguish various geographic (or historical) areas in Slovenia. However, we can expect that these various accountabilities corresponding to "local social groups" would be gathered into a more general "accountability" of the Slovene group as a whole, and made operative as a general framework that can be super- imposed onto the partial frameworks of every subgroup. The analysis of social logic of elaboration of varions arrangments or com- petences The problem here posed is the way through which a new State rationally establishes competences when it is confronted with a certain number of external constraints and moreover has to assume the legacy of the former organisation of public authority (in this case ex-Yugoslavia). A correlative problem is the sociological interpretation of these competences, that is to say, the possible relationship between social structure and the process of building institutional arrangments and drawing up official texts. As for the rational framework of the "actions-in-context as a practical accomplishment"? of the members, various possibilities can be taken out of the following (non-exhaustive) list: - privatisation, with the transfer of social ownership and the establishment of both internal and external markets with corresponding regulations (i.e. the eventual fixing of prices); - local authority reform, i.e., the present project directed towards creation, instead of the very limited number of previous "Yugoslav cities" (38 for a population of less than 2 milions inhabitants), of smaller, therefore more numerous, units. This reform obviously would be accompanied by a new definition of the relationship between the central State and the cities, of the competences in respect to each level, and would pose the possible guestion of a new intermediary level; - the definition of Slovene citizenship, the right of acguiring the citizenship ánd the legal definition and rights (education, local and natiorial electoral representation) of the "recognized minorities" (Italian, Hungarian) as well. It would also be interesting to look into documentation concerning the ethno- culturally "non-Slovene" populations, living as citizens in the territory of the Republic: e.g., non-Slovene citizens of the former SFRY (according to the Constitution of 1974), and among them Jews and Gipsies, always with re- spect to the use of language, especially its use in education; 4 H. Garfinkel, op. cit., p. 9. Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana 1993, öt. 28 149 - general educational policy in linguistic matters and history and literature subject teaching as well; that is to say, the subjects which confront the sym- bolics of the in-group and out-groups (larger entities); - the definition of public opinion guidance by "ideological systems" that are legally recognized or only suggested (political parties, trade unions, churches, youth organizations, and generally, officially recognized associa- tions). A first stage of examination of present and forecasted bills and administra- tive texts, and preliminary contacts with public administration executives and persons acting as experts will be necessary to identify the most efficient direc- tions of the investigation. It is expected that the result will show that the com- petences are not only (maybe not at all) a problem of functions, but rather that of translation, according to the terms of public law, of the collective represen- tation of what the Republic of Slovenia is supposed to be. The analysis of the Slovene group representations and the general sym- bolic system The basic guestion is: how can a group identity, tacitly admitted (because it has been culturally considered and made famous through the History by writers and opinion leaders), be transformed into an organized medium to make clear and legitimate a "national" identity? Obviously, here we do not want to debate the characteristics, or divisions, between "a group" and "a nation". With respect to the level of inguiry chosen, the problem is just an affective or ideological one. At the very most, we can evoke a certain change in balance: a group is balanced between what is implicit and has no necessity to be explained, and what is recognized and celebrated in privacy (and is sometimes referred to as "tradition"); a nation would instead be balanced between what is publicly recognized and defended (and the term ordinarily used will be "culture"), and what is institutionally codified. We will limit ourselves to a more simple problem: how does a territorial group practi- cally define, or recognize, itself? The two processes involved are the (relative) homogeneity within, and clear boundaries of the group; it is possible to suppose that a political power can, given such a group, successfully legitimate itself using the group (or the idea of it) as a support. Four stages can be identified in clarifying these problems; while they for- mally appear as a logical succession, they are in actual social process inter- twined: 1) What sorts of personal practices define a repetitive and elaborate relation- ship with space, or cause a space to be constituted as a practical one? 2) How are these practices elaborated in order to set up the language of per- sonal membership and/or spontaneous identification processes? 3) Are these languages and/or practical codes (those which allow the self- location of the individual in the space) connected with a tacitly recognized 150 Bernard Poche: The creation group practicing the same language - with eventual superimposition of a group on sub-group? 4) Is this common language recognized (and if so, how?) as a general practical code defining the structure of behaviour? This assumption would signify that the group (1) explicitly recognizes itself as a system, and (2) recognizes the boundaries of this system, in a more significant sense than it does the sub-groups boundaries. This analysis has two main goals: 1) It allows for building up a unitary theoretical frame that will reveal for each individual considered what is it that deals with actual practices of space on the one hand, and that which referrs to the so-called symbolic practices (language, ethnographical data, etc.). Both actual and symbolic practices are considered as accomplishments of individuals in possession of a logic of sense. 2) It also allows for considering all the subjects as forming a continuum from the most common material practices to the successive levels of awareness that are characteristic of the group (or the nation). In fact, nothing prevents us to consider these finally organized systems of practices as corresponding to a necessity, even to a threatened necessity whose defence would be imperative (the so-called national awareness). But it is very important in the framework of an inguiry not to aim at this possibility too soon; in the same way, it would be convenient to interview persons who do not use professionally or organically a pre-established "code of Slovene identity". By employing both precautions, we can hope to see how the routine everyday territorial codes organize themselves as a rationalized whole, as a reportable, "accountable" framework of the practical accomplishments of the "members". The gathering of materials according to these principles will be the core of the inguiry on a population sample with a minimum distribution as regards social categories and geographic areas of living. But the methodology does not suppose a statistically correct distribution, with criteria of meaningfulness. Such an effort would be as diffcult as it would be unuseful. The goal is to ob- tain a certain number of coherent "language systems" as constituting rational and intelligible ("accountable") elaborations, buildings, of the relation to the world, and to see how these constructions are taken for granted by the members as constituting a general accountability of the Slovene space. This building process is the real subject of the research, not a more or less fiotitious "reliability" based on a scale of freguencies. We can build a sample of (approximately) one hundred persons, according to two principles: - age, gender, job category and/or educational level; "We must remember that as far as ethnomethodological principles of analysis are concemed, the "member" guality and position come prior to the notion of group. The member is de- fined through his capacity "to produce recognizable sentences" (Cicourel), that is to say, a discourse that the ncighbouring individuals may interprete and recognize as corresponding to thcir production of meaning; this interaction between individual intelligibilities is the origin of the group. Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana 1993, öt, 28 151 - the empirically significant areas in Slovenia, for instance concerning the centre of the country, large cities (Ljubljana or Maribor), and a more rural area; Adriatic coast area, mountainous Northern border, Hungarian minority area, and the new Croatian border. These inguiries would take the form of semi-directed interviews with a suc- cession of closed guestions proposing a certain number of choices, and a set of open guestions (explanation of the answer). The rather small number of persons interviewed would allow (at least partly) gualitative interpretation, in order not to loose the nuances of the justificative answers. The following fields, and overall their order, have to be taken into account in elaborating the guestions. A. Material space practices It is possible to think of the following categories: - Biographical path of the interviewed person (birth place, hus- band/wife/companion's birth place and encounter place, education and suc- cessive jobs places, viewed or hoped for place for future plans if it is the case); - Spatial sketch of current relations, connected to ordinary material life (shopping, and so on), to personal relations (relatives, friends), to leisure time (show and culture places, sport and open air leisure, short and annual holidays places); - Business travels; - Non-professional irregular travel (i.e. private tours abroad). In each case it would be necessary to specify the freguencies and precise motives, the valuation concerning practical or sensitive relevance, the guality and efficiency of the result, and overall, the organisation of these journeys according the actual pattern and freguencies, in order to obtain the resulting design of both Slovenian space and relations with external space (neighbouring space - Italy, Austria, Hungary - with the correlative problem of the borders, and distant countries). B. Symbolic space practices So-called material practices already are constituting elements of language, both as a part of the practical code of world intelligibility, and through the associated elements of valuation that the interviews reveal. "Symbolic prac- tices" certainly have material basis, but they clarify the actual use of symbolic resources. The element of speech or language becomes explicit. Furthermore, though the use of language is a personal affair, as a basic code it springs from Obviously, "mental" borders do not necessarily coincide with political ones. 152 Bernard Poche: The creation the group. The individual partly acguires language use through socialization (during childhood and after this time); through permanent, implicit relation- ships with the others (at least ideally). Various items can be envisioned: - Spoken language or languages (including dialects) according to circum- stances, freguency, fluency, opportunities of use, etc. - Knowledge of the country's history (or group's, or Slovene nation's);? what are the remembered points, how are they related, what points are declared relevant? - Presentation and description of the usually freguented space; what is its extent, how is it characterized? (if possible, discussions of this point should not be guided towards affective issues, and after first factually-oriented re- actions one should try to obtain reactions concerning specificity, eventual feeling of inclusion or limited space etc. - or the opposite if it is the case!). - Are there particular habits or manners or customs the interviewed person is practising and/or knows of? (if possible, the term "traditions", should be avoided; at first let them appear as material or judgemental facts; the charac- terization - positive or not - on the part of the involved person should be waited upon. When this stage is achieved, it is possible to introduce the problematics of the group itself, beginning with the very guestion of personal identification by the person interviewed himself (herself). It would be useful to propose clearly at first that various answers are possible as a membership declaration, even localistic or abstract one, for instance: - citizenship of the city; - . membership concerning a small geographic/historic/cultural area; - . membership in the Slovene people; - membership in a larger or more vaguely defined area, such as a "cultural" one (mountaneous or Alpine area, Balkans, Slavic or South Slavic peoples, etc.). A person obviously may declare more than one membership feeling or per- sonal identification. Clearly it is necessary to ask of the justifying reasons of his/her choice, the "built-in rationalizations". Only after these topics have been covered, it is advisable to try and provoke answers concerning what it is that characterizes the group with respect to its external neighbourhood, if possible (nearly necessarily, in fact) without using first such suggestions or nuances as oppose to, or are in conflict with, what is taken for granted by everybody ("natural friends or enemies", and so on). For instance, an informant will be asked to speak about the relationship with Aus- tria, Italy (and/or Trieste, Gorizia, Friuli), Croatia, Hungary - and others. The justifying reasons are obviously important, whatever they are. The logical conclusion would be to direct the interview situation towards the starting points of the present paper concerning the Slovene State principle and 7. Itis better not to use directly the term "nation" in order to avoid automatic words associa- tions. Razpravc in gradivo, Ljubljana 1993), št, 28 153 creation; is a proper State convenient or necessary for the maintaining or safe- guard of the interests of persons living there? Why and how? Through what ways and conditions does the interviewed person hope and await for the ex- pressions of his/her personal identity by the Slovene State? These guestions pertain to the opinion poll or survey technigues, they are complementary, but in no case the main and prior guestions. In conclusion I shall repeat that clearly the content of the proposed guide- lines for an interview has been tested in previous studies (though less sophisti- cated in terms of method and sample). It has to be discussed now with respect to the field knowledge and sensitiveness of Slovene social scientists and part- ners. The progressive build-up of the interview from practical facts to (carefully touched on) affective (or ideological) problems is, however, fundamental to this method. We have to look beyond the self-construction of the interviewed per- son, even if it reveals just an internalization of stereotypes. It is not possible at this stage to anticipate the results. They are highly de- pendent of the answers, with hope to the stimulating effect of the unexpected ones, and surprising discourses ... Povzetek Nova slovenska državnost, Preiskava kompetenc javnih oblasti in mobilizacije socialnih procesov identifikacije in pripadnosti. Raziskovalni program Raziskovalni projekt z gornjim naslovom je skupni projekt avtorja in sodelavcev Inštituta za narodnostna vprašanja v Ljubljani. Delo se bo začelo v letu 1994. Avtor nadrobno razčlenjuje teoretski okvir zastavljene raziskave, ki jo umešča v prostorsko sociologijo. Slovenska raziskava je del večletnega projekta, ki bo potekal na več lokacijah v Evropi (Belgija, italijanska Lombardija, regionalna gibanja v Franciji, Slovenija), in je definiran vzdolž treh določnic: problema redefiniranja odnosa med socialnimi skupinami, teritorijem in socialno reprezentacijo. Slednja je razumljena kar najširše in vključuje kulturo in jezik na eni strani, ter ekonomske in politične ustanove družbe na drugi. Avtor preiskavo torej zastavlja kot sociološki ekvivalent geopolitični problematiki redefiniranja državnih meja. Spoznavno izhodišče projekta je stanje "krize", socialne anomije v situacijah, ko je vidna dezintegracija koncepta nacionalne države oz. reinterpretacije tega koncepta. Pričakovanje splošnega, enosmernega "poenotenja" tržišč v Zahodni Evropi, ter ustrezna marksistična pojmovanja o kulturnem in socialnem poenotenju v Vzhodni Evropi so se izkazala za zgodovinsko napačna. Očitno je zgodovinski proces kom- Pleksnejši. Novi procesi gradnje države tudi niso identični tovrstnim procesom v evropskem 19. stoletju. Moderni evropski regionalizem se je uveljavil zlasti v ekonom- sko depriviligiranih področjih, kar pa ne drži za primere, ki jih raziskuje avtorjev projekt; Slovenija, Lombardija in Flandrija so v svojih federalnih ali nacionalnih državnih enotah predstavljale oz. predstavljajo najrazvitejše dele. Za sociološko 154 Bernard Poche: The creation analizo, meni avtor, ekonomske okolnosti niso nujno najbolj povedne, zlasti pa je potrebno sociološko analizo pragmatično razmejiti od zgodovinske evidence. Cilj raziskave je v slovenskem primeru kompleksna dokumentacija in interpretacija "definicije novonastale situacije". Kot najprimernejši se v slovenski raziskavi kaže t.i. etnometodološki terenski in- strumentarij in pristop. Metodološko je raziskava razdeljena v dva dela: na preiskave t.i. praks v materialnem prostoru, ter praks t.i. simbolnem prostoru. Prvi del se nanaša na načine uveljavljanja državne avtoritete, na opazovanje načina, kako in s kolikšno legitimiteto se država uveljavlja in utrjuje in s kakšno stopnjo pertinence do svojih državljanov. Drugi del tvori terensko jedro projekta in se ukvarja s konstituiranjem skupinske identitete na različnih nivojih, od lokalne do nacionalne. Avtor prinaša detajlni shemi obeh projektnih tematik. Poudarek v obdelavi podatkov, ki bodo predvidoma zajeli različne lokacije (večje mesto-manjše mesto v osrednji Sloveniji, lokacije na "starih" državnih mejah in na "novih", etnično homogeni - heterogeni tereni), bo na kvalitativni interpretaciji vodenih in polvodenih intervjujev, katerih teme in sekvenčnost avtor podrobno razde- luje. Projekt bo tako razpolagal z rezultati, o katerih je v tej fazi mogoče malo ali nič konkretnega napovedati, bodo pa iskali odgovor na vprašanja, kako je "slovenskost" kot identiteta konstituirana, kako in v kakšni meri je slovenska država nujen, racion- alen in pertinenten referenčni okvir za svoje prebivalce, njihove mnogovrstne iden- titete in pričakovanja.